The American era of AC Milan, RedBird Capital-branded to be precise, is now a case study on how the numbers on the balance sheet cannot compensate for sporting failure.
While on the one hand the ownership can boast growing revenues (€457m in the last accounts) and investments of over €100m net in the last two seasons on the squad, on the other hand the reality on the pitch tells a completely different story: ninth place in the league, and no European competitions in 2025-26.
Added to this is an indelible stain on the Rossoneri’s history: the relegation of Milan Futuro to Serie D, in their debut campaign. It is something that has never happened before to a second team in Italy, with Juventus and Atalanta instead consolidating their positions.
Milan Futuro: From promise to relegation
A year ago, the birth of Milan Futuro was greeted with enthusiasm. The idea was ambitious: to create a bridge between the Primavera and the first team. Instead, it turned into a nightmare on multiple fronts.
The project began under the sporting direction of Antonio D’Ottavio and the technical guidance of Ignazio Abate, fresh from consecutive appearances in the UEFA Youth League semi-finals and final with the Primavera.
The arrival of Zlatan Ibrahimović – in a role that even he is seemingly having trouble defining -destabilised the entire decision-making system. Abate was removed, apparently for not giving enough playing time to Ibrahimović’s son, Maximilian.
D’Ottavio was also removed later, replaced by Jovan Kirovski, a figure with no experience in Italian football, but a trusted man of the former Swedish striker. The result? Total disorganisation, changes in head coach and a disrupted and poorly managed team, culminating in relegation.
During the season, the Futuro squad was plundered by the first team, often just to make up the numbers on the bench. Talents like Alex Jimenez, Francesco Camarda, Kevin Zeroli and Lorenzo Torriani were used as stopgaps, forced into constant shuttling that compromised their performance and growth.
To make matters worse, Massimo Oddo arrived late to replace Daniele Bonera, called by the club of his heart to save what could be saved. The result was relegation despite the €15m spent, a figure that is bigger than the budgets of some Serie B teams.
First team in disarray
While the youth project collapsed, the first team followed the same fate. The sudden dismissal of Paolo Maldini and Frederic Massara – architects of the second place in Serie A and the semi-final of the 2022-23 Champions League – was only the first sign of a short-sighted management.
So, Cardinale acted like an American, taking inspiration from Hollywood with the transfer market (the damned Moneyball) and taking inspiration from Donald Trump in bringing his courtiers to the palace, ousting the advisors in favour of an echo chamber.
It is an act that led, in practice, Milan to replace Massara with nobody, if not the algorithm, and Maldini – who to many symbolised Milanismo and competence – with an accountant (Giorgio Furlani). From then on, the decisions that would follow would be one disaster after another.
Perhaps even such an arrangement of square pegs in round holes can produce positive work with a unified and collective vision, but this all went out of the window when reports began to surface about the internal power struggle.
Also, there has to be an element of respect for the way things are done in Italy. Season after season the proof is that the team that wins is not the one who tries to circumvent the system but relies on trusted professionals who understand the dynamics. Is it a coincidence that Antonio Conte’s Napoli are battling with Simone Inzaghi and Beppe Marotta’s Inter for the Scudetto?
The purge of those who were not a ‘Yes Man’ created management without weight and vision. Milan have lost their identity, competence and continuity. Unlike in the past, however, today public opinion seems to have understood things and have understood the real culprit of this mess.
The American model has failed
The choice of those in charge to rely on Moneyball-style algorithms, trying to buy under-valued players and to beat the system that has long been established in Italy, has produced a market without vision.
Paulo Fonseca was chosen over other candidates who had won and knew the league better. Rather than put faith in their methods, the management hid behind their failures, presenting them as Fonseca’s when they abandoned him and then sacked him.
He was replaced by Sergio Conceição, whose arrival was not just endorsed by the omnipresent Jorge Mendes but actually forced through, together with the João Félix move. More sacrificial lambs to be fed to the tired and disaffected masses.
After Sunday evening’s defeat to Roma, RedBird’s failure can be considered complete: out of Europe entirely, relegation to Serie D with an expensive project, millions wasted, no tangible growth in talent, and a chasm that has opened up between the club and the fans.
The last two years (and possible more) will be talked about for a long time to come, but in the manuals on how not to manage a football club. The 2024-25 season will be remembered as one of the darkest in the history of Milan.
An incompetent management, incapable of doing justice to the historical excellence of the club, has led to a deep rift with the past and with the fans. Now more than ever, the future of Milan appears shrouded in a thick fog, where it is not money that is lacking, but clarity and ideas.
Money will be lacking soon. Don’t get me wrong, real soon.
Zlatan bär ansvaret med sitt ego.
Han skall bort och Cardinale sälja nu
Well said Oliver.
Reality bites for the owners now, it is an expensive failure and selling off talent will only devalue the club further
Very expensive failure for redbird. Very profitable for elliot.
At last!!! Someone spoke (wrote actually) the truth.
Americans have no clue how European football works…especially Italian.
The ‘American model’ was working fine before RedBird bought the club. The ‘American model’ saved the club and turned it from a laughing stock into a Scudetto winner and UCL semi-finalist.
As ‘K’ says, you’re lazily using ‘Moneyball’ without actually looking at the issues. You think ‘Moneyball’ is suggesting we buy players like Royal, like Morata, like Walker, like Gimenez, like Joao Felix, like Chukwueze…? No, that’s old fashioned scouting, players that ‘look good’, personal preferences and kowtowing to agents. In the context of the movie, we’re relying on the old scouts (in a fabricated scene, not in the book) rather than the newer methods. What’s the alternative? Forgo all data and just buy expensive big names? That’s literally a description of what we’ve been doing.
We have no sporting strategy, no person dictating the direction of the club, since we sacked the two who were doing it.
We fired a coach who outperformed spend for each year he was at the club, because second apparently wasn’t good enough on the fourth best payroll.
We hired a project coach who’s only ever achieved with time and always started seasons slow, with a completely different tactical approach to his predecessor who started slow in the league but at least was doing well in Europe.
After a few months, fired him for someone with a completely opposite mentality and a tactical belief that didn’t fit our squad. It was nearly two months without a midweek game to try and work on tactics. We won a friendly trophy but then failed at two chances to qualify in Europe.
We smashed the bank in the winter window better on UCL qualification, but ended up spending a fortune on players who added very little or were injured.
We (and France) ran Hernandez into the ground, gave him no summer break, completely changed the tactical approach around him and then wondered why he was no longer the leader.
Morata, one of the most consistent players of the last decade, we signed as one of the higher earners. Similar to Hernandez, he had been used relentlessly by Spain and Atletico Madrid and had no break.
We spent two months haggling over Fofana and finally signed him after the season started with no chance to bed in for pre-season.
We loaned out or gave away several players, including two Italians we could have put in the European squad for ‘free’, several of which have finished above us in the league (Kalulu, Pobega, Adli, Calabria).
We pushed the third generation of Maldini out of the club for free, despite having a glaring hole at AM and a lack of Italians… only to watch a Champions League qualifier buy him within a few months.
That same team has turned Charles de Ketelaere, a player we wanted rid of so badly we kept accepting a change of terms to allow them to pay less and late, into one of the league’s most sought after players.
We refuse to sign a proper defensive midfielder.
As a result of all this, the atmosphere inside the stadium has been sour since the start of the year. Not helped by the Ultra groups being so grumpy about losing their ridiculous power and ownership over parts of the ground.
Don’t blame ‘The American Model’ and ‘Moneyball’ as the issues here as a quick get out. The mismanagement of the club goes way beyond that.
But maybe we’ll have a sporting director with an actual strategy. We’ll have a year out of Europe with fewer midweek games and more coaching time. We’ll not play the horrid FIFA club tournament so our players should have a proper break and pre-season. Maybe it’s a blip, we’ll have to wait and see.
You said everything correctly? Cardinal show that he gas no interest in the club which in itself isn’t bad. But he neglected the club and didn’t put proper structure. American owned a lot of team nowadays. Some have been doing extremely well, Liverpool, Arsenal. Some learned from their mistakes, Roma, Chelsea. The question now is does this owner will learn from his mistakes. Like Abramovich said when he was leaving Chelsea he was the custodial of the club and understood that financially he was responsible for the team but the club biggest asset was the fan. Something Cardinale has yet to understand
In any American run company if you flop 100mil+ and fail every set objective, people are getting fired right and left.
But not at Milan. Two funds, no one knows who works for who and who’s accountable for what… yet everyone stays on like nothing happened…
This isn’t even an American model. This is straight up Twilight Zone.
There is sun in the horizon after twilight, symbolizing hope. Now it’s just darkness of the night, with occasional stars flashing.
The problem is not the ‘American Model’.
The problem is the personnel. No model is going to produce a good result when overseen by incompetent individuals.
Moneyball is a red herring, or maybe a strawman.
Maldini and Massara were applying the same principles. They had the same chief scout. Almost of the players Milan following the dismissal of M&M were players already identified.
At some point judgement need to be sound and logical. Otherwise you get people who think that selling Tonali 12 months after the loss of Kessie, gutting the centre of the park in its entirety, is a smarter decision than selling a left back (if money is that much of an issue) or selling no one and just buying Reijnders and Pulisic. These are the same people that loaned out Bennacer mid season.
You also need sound judgement to identify the right type of striker who the wingers could play off. That’s why Zlatan and Giroud had been the CFs, not because Moneyball ordained it. Big, physical strikers who can score are extremely expensive. So smart operators make a judgement call to sign the experienced guys for very little because they can absorb physical pressure to free the wingers (which is Milan’s strength).
When you’ve got good operators they are smart enough not to blow the budget on Santiago Giminez who, as a style of striker, is a second striker in Italy and barely an upgrade on Luca Jovic.
There’s no moneyball in play and it’s not an American model. It’s simply a group of investors with no understanding of the sport trying, and failing. This is why I stopped listening to the show. You play to the lazy, race baiting crowd.
Get your head out of your a*** and google a little bit Gerryboys. I know it does not correspond with your beliefs but you have everything you need to know on relation Gerry – Billy Beane – AC Milan – money ball, out there.
Gerry gave many interveiws on the matter of using moneyball in European football with Billy Beane. Beane was brought to AC Milan as Transfer Market Advisor, whatever that means. Billy persuaded Gerry to invest into European football because there are high returns from buying and selling players.
It’s exactly this model that has brought us where we are today and it’s only fitting it is called “American model”.
Oh and btw, Atalanta are not 100% owned by Americans, Percassi brothers still owns 45% and retained their positions as Chairman and CEO in the club.
If we want to force Cardinalr to sell AC Milan, we need to starve AC Milan of revenues. This means do not buy season tickets, do not attend home and away matches, and do not watch games on TV. Once there is no money coming in, Cardinale dos not have the financial resources to finance the team and he will be forced to sell. Milan fans must go on strike.
Agreed, it’s the only solution.
It will hurt the team and will take time to recover but the alternative of keeping these parasites is worse
Just a final comment before I lock them in this article. I hoped that the piece would generate some good honest discussion, and for the large part it has, but there were far too many personal comments towards myself and towards the work we do on the site which is a shame.
Not every column, feature, editorial etc. will get everyone in agreements. It’s impossible. I don’t think that it’s a reach to say that Milan have not operated competently at any level this season – it has been a disaster across the board – and when it’s such a collective failure we point to the top. From there, we can highlight the mistakes made, the actions (or lack of) that caused them and the failure of the system/model in terms of accountability.
Cardinale has publicly made reference to hoping to bring RedBird’s expertise, accrued in American sport, to transform the club into an entertainment product and not just a sporting organisation. We can all agree the sporting side has failed, and that the club is being run very differently to the last ownership Elliott. That’s the reason for the admittedly redacted title.
As always, we appreciate the feedback and those who want to engage in civil discussion. For those who didn’t like this, we hope you like the next one!